Mexico’s Richest Man Urges Young U.S. Immigrants Into Workforce

Billionaire Carlos Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant to Mexico, amassed his fortune by recognizing the depressed value of assets during the country’s financial crisis in the 1980s. Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire
who ranks as the world’s second-richest person, has introduced a
campaign to integrate about half a million young immigrants into
the U.S. workforce.

About 1.1 million people in the U.S. are eligible for work
authorization under a program known as Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, for undocumented immigrants who
arrived to the country as children. Only about half have been
approved, Carlos Slim Foundation Chief Executive Officer Roberto
Tapia-Conyer said in a phone interview.

“This is a population of great potential, and our goal is
to reduce the access barriers for them to reach this
potential,” Tapia-Conyer said. “We want to incorporate them to
the formal workforce, to build not just them but their families,
so they’re able to contribute to the economy.”

Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant to Mexico, amassed
his fortune by recognizing the depressed value of assets during
the country’s financial crisis in the 1980s. He acquired control
of former state monopoly Telefonos de Mexico in a 1990
privatization, helping propel him to the echelons of the world’s
richest, trailing only Bill Gates with a fortune of $79.2
billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

While most of his wealth comes from his companies in
Mexico, Slim has investments in the U.S., including the nation’s
biggest prepaid phone provider, TracFone, and a minority stake
in New York Times Co.

Economic opportunities for DACA beneficiaries have risen
since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the
program two years ago, according to a June research brief from
the American Immigration Council. The program’s benefits appear
to be the strongest for young people attending four-year
colleges and those with college degrees, according to the
report.

Still, high application fees and lack of awareness have
kept the program from reaching as many people as possible,
Tapia-Conyer said. The Slim Foundation has introduced a website
that informs potential applicants of requirements needed to
apply, including videos that describe how to fill out the forms
and direct links to check on an application’s status.

Slim has been praised and criticized for his approach to
philanthropy. He has said he won’t join the Giving Pledge
started by billionaires Warren Buffett and Gates to encourage
the world’s wealthiest people to give away half of their wealth
to charity, arguing that it’s more important to develop
companies instead, taking people out of poverty through
employment.

Hispanics will make up a third of the U.S. population by
2060, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Through March,
more than 550,000 people had been approved for DACA, mostly from
Mexico, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
data.

The Slim Foundation website offers video job-training
courses for sought-after professions, ranging from electrician
to bank teller, Tapia-Conyer said. Students are tested and then
validated for their skills. The site also has links to online
classes translated to Spanish from colleges such as Stanford
University, through previously announced partnerships with
groups like Coursera Inc.